A tour of Speedwell Caverns
16 September 2004

After a late morning we managed to create a visit to a local lead mine and quite a fun experience it was too.

Personally speaking I love being in tunnels and caverns and the idea of travelling half a mile down an underground river-tunnel by boat was not something I was going to let us pass up on.

You can click on the picture (right) for the gallery to view some of the pictures taken from down there and get a better feel for the place. What we are talking about is a way of life and of working from bygone centuries that was by our standards hard to say the least. Lead miners would work these tunnels all day long, with a pick in one hand, a shovel in the other, a bucket hooked over their heads and a candle in their mouth to see with.

It was dangerous also as they used explosive to get to the lead they were mining, yet had little time to retreat before the blasts.

All in all the visit made for an interesting and fun added extra to the weekend.